Create shots from Thumbnails
Alex Czetwertynski
via web
I would be great if there was a way to automate the creation of shots. Right now I have a folder locally with 50 thumbnails numbered one to 50, and the only way to create shots with these thumbnails is to first create the shot, then add the thumbnails, which takes a few minutes per shot.
Support Staff 2 Posted by cameron on 16 Sep, 2009 03:38 AM
Hi Alex,
Most folks use the API to bulk create shots, usually from CSV data
exported from a spreadsheet. The Python API can be downloaded from
this site (search for "API".) See example 301.
Also, you can use the shots.thumbnail_url field to point to a shot
thumbnail. Say you took your 50 thumbnails and put them on an HTTP
server somewhere. Then you could set the thumbnail_url to point to the
location of the thumbnail for each shot.
Finally, if you have your shots in spreadsheet form, I can import them
for you as long as it is simple. If it is complex (over 30 minutes)
then its $50/hour to format and load your data. I usually won't charge
you to do simple imports.
If I were to create some way to automate shot creation -- what would
you like to see? How would it work?
Thanks,
Cameron
3 Posted by alex on 16 Sep, 2009 04:07 AM
I guess I'm being lazy...
My ideal situation would be a dialog that has
"Create shots in bulk"
Submenu - from image folder - from spreadsheet
Then if you had a folder full of incrementally numbered images it would upload them all to the shot area and create a shot for each image based on the image names (without the extnsion)
Alex
Support Staff 4 Posted by cameron on 16 Sep, 2009 05:03 AM
I used to have a simple CSV import (actually, its still there, just go to /admin/import) that would create shots from a csv file, but I took it out because no one could seem to make it work. But it is there if you want to give it a try.
I would start with a single shot before importing a whole bunch of shots. To save yourself a lot of deleting when you forget something.
I probably need to think about a robust shot import page -- seems to come up often enough.
5 Posted by Nick Jushchyshyn (work) on 16 Sep, 2009 01:05 PM
This should be a quicky python script.
While it wouldn't be a dropdown control, it could be a single command in the terminal or double-click of an icon on a local computer.
The main thing at the moment though is the file/thumbnail upload functionality in the API.
Cam, how far along are the beta tools for this part of the API?
Support Staff 6 Posted by cameron on 18 Sep, 2009 03:28 PM
Hi Nick,
With the current file manager, an API for files was extremely hard. However, with the new file manager, its going to be really easy. Basically, adding a file to a shot, element, asset or task will be a matter of uploading the file to the correct folder. If it is an image or video we will thumbnail/proxy it automatically. A big chunk of this is working today on our staging server.
The main difficulty I see, is that we need some way for the API to use credentials other than the user's username and password, and the cloud storage API key for the account. Working on this.
I'll try to post some file manager API samples in the next couple of days.
Support Staff 7 Posted by cameron on 18 Mar, 2010 02:45 PM
Hi Guys,
I just wanted to let you know that I have preliminary API support for importing thumbnails working if you need it. The final API will be available in a week or so.
Essentially, I have a script that looks at the filename, and compares it to all the existing shot labels, uploads the file and attaches it to the appropriate shot. I just used it to import over 100 thumbnails for a feature.
I also have a script that reads sequences, shots and elements from a spreadsheet, including a set of custom fields, and creates all the needed sequences, shots, elements and custom data in ShotRunner.
As more features are starting to use ShotRunner, the API is coming along nicely.
Cheers,
Cameron